Great Western Coffee Shop

Five new high-speed main lines crossing the width and breadth of the UK may be built as part of a review of the rail network, Network Rail says.

The network operator will announce on Monday it is to commission a study looking into what could be the largest track build since the 19th century.

Full Article at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7467203.stm

Further related links.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/7467120.stm

http://railwayeye.blogspot.com/2008/06/que-bono.html

This story is also hitting the 'national news' pages of our local newspapers, due to interesting local implications.

For example, see http://www.thisisclevedon.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=224107&command=displayContent&sourceNode=223485&contentPK=20923615&folderPk=104671&pNodeId=224162

Rail bosses are to look at the possibility of building five new high-speed main lines as part of a review of the network's future, Network Rail said.

Network Rail said it was to commission a study which would look into the feasibility of new lines along the UK's busiest routes in what would amount to the largest track build since the 19th century.

The review, which will be announced on Monday, will also assess the need for high speed trains similar to the French TGV to cope with Britain's growing number of rail users.

Over the last decade, the network has seen passenger numbers increase by about 40%. More people are using the service than at any time since 1946.

Numbers are expected to swell by a further 30% in the next ten years, adding to the burden on the current network.

The study being commissioned by Network Rail will look at the service in the post-2014 period, with all options "on the table".

If given the go-ahead, the new lines are likely to run alongside some of the UK's busiest existing routes.

They include the West Coast line to Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow, the East Coast line to Edinburgh, the Great Western to Bristol, the Midland main line to Sheffield and the Chiltern route to Birmingham.

The London to Penzance line will also be looked at as part of the review.

If the proposals are adopted, the new tracks are thought likely to be built with high-speed passenger trains in mind.

The brakes on this will be the NIMBY's

I wonder what the journey times would be like for GWR routes?

London to Bristol under 1 hour?

London to Penzance in 3 hours?

Are there figures?

In First's 2002 High Speed Rail plans (click on http://web.archive.org/web/20041026081304/www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/news/release.php?item=29) the following journey times were mooted :

Swindon 35 mins
Bristol Parkway 49 mins
Cardiff 70 mins
Swansea 120 mins
Plymouth 140 mins

Now Bristol Parkway to London in 49 minutes would unclog the M4 bigtime!

The noticeable absence from the proposed five routes is connecting Plymouth to Birmingham via Taunton, BTM, BPW and Cheltenham/Gloucester/Worcester.

The sole purpose of these proposed high speed routes seem to be London focused.

For a national high speed network to work, it must interconnect at several points, and connect at a number of normal speed feeder stations on route.

Hmmm, let's face it, to get the volumes of traffic needed to remotely justify a route they need to be London based. No cross-country (lower case) route will ever cut it. I think to get one additional HS line in this country in the next 20 years will be fairly remarkable.     

Could the timing of this anouncement be anything to do with labour realising that they will loose the next general election.  It will then be up to the Tories to cancel the lines (which they may have to do if the economy is still in a mess) .

These don't look like new railway lines at all but upgrades to the existing system.

This looks more like playing politics than getting on with the job. :-\

I doubt any new HS line or indeed mainline electrification will be contemplated until after the Olympics as the games will more than likely take most of the engineering and construction expertise in UK PLC and also will rob the Treasury dry.   The other main project being Crossrail this will call on most of the National expertise in electrification and route upgrading.

What I believe will happen is post the Olympics and provided the Government and there is two general elections to go and does not have a change of heart and build more motorways !! the DoT will start on either current mainline electrification or HS2 to the north I don't think the UK economy and the government's will is strong enough to do both at the same time.

I disagree. A high speed line linking the spokes of the London wheel i.e. cross country route linking the other proposed lines from Taunton to York.

However, it should have limited stop(s) at the following places:

FROM PLYMOUTH...
*Taunton
*Bristol
*Cheltenham or Gloucester, or joint station
*Worcester
*Birmingham
*Derby or Nottingham
*Sheffield
*Leeds
*York
...TO SCOTLAND

Edited for clarity

How many people want to travel from the north to Taunton? There is little there. A XC route would need to be extended to Plymouth, or Exeter at the very least!

I'd say Tiverton Parkway has a higher demand than Taunton - although a business case would only really work from Exeter.

(TC now recovered from a 72 hour LAN party)

But D/M, there is already is a route proposed to Plymouth in the plans! I am simply talking about the link line between the propsed lines.

Ditto for the North, it would join the proposed network around York, and would then travel on the new ECML to Scotland.

Sorry for my un clear post!

The problem with your idea is that the average XC journey is about 60 miles - which isn't too far when you consider it and so a high speed line would probably cause demand to drop on XC trains, while the conventional replacements (there will have to be some) would have severe overcrowding no doubt.

Um... average journey time 60 miles?? What about holiday makers going from Scotland to the south coast etc.

I do not think your figures are valid.

Lets take out shorter distance commuters who would continue to use the normal network.

I bet that increases your average!

Then we will have  all the people tempted away from the motorways and airports. Guess how far they will be travelling? Yes, long distance.

So that "average" will be much higher.

Plus shorter distance passengers/commuters will have less overcrowding.

So this route would be a win win for all.

Shorter distance commuters provide the most amount of revenue for the XC franchise I suspect.

I bet it does too, but you lose revenue out of it through ORCATS.

Most air travel nowadays from places such as Heathrow is abroad so I don't think you'll be taking much traffic from there. Unless you plan to integrate transport far better with Heathrow (which it needs certainly for rail).

If you don't believe a figure which the DfT released ages ago then I don't believe you're human. ;)

Depends on the area, for instance if someone is commuting from perhaps Cheltenham to Longbridge each day - they will still use the high speed network and just change at Birmingham New Street.

Nothing is as clear-cut as you make it.

If anything does happen, it will certainly be a case of all rails lead to London, because that's where the money is, and these trains will never make lots of stops, just look at the French and German high-speed routes.

If a high-speed line were built on the Chiltern Line corridor, with a branch off to Oxford, the Oxford services would probably run non-stop to/from London, or maybe fit in Bicester on the way - rather like the Kent high-speed commuter services planned for next year, many of which will be first stop at Ashford. Heading north, the first stop would likely be a Parkway, also offering local rail connections, somewhere in the vicinity of Leamington, Kenilworth or Coventry, then on to Birmingham.

But by taking longer-haul passengers off the traditional routes, you make life on those lines easier, and can even speed up trains, because you're not having to pack so many services along them.

Just as much of the FGW network is a 'commuter' railway, the same is true for CrossCountry but it lacks the tidal flows of peak hour, premium-rate traffic that the main lines into London pull in - which is just as true of the French example, perhaps more so. Just look at all the TGVs lined up in the depots on the approaches to Paris terminals during the middle of the day, which are then wheeled out and coupled on to the single sets that have been running around off-peak

I am talking about domestic air travel such as Newcastle to Bristol etc.

A line would reduce such travel by 80% depending on the pricing (the opening of the TGV from Paris to Lyon did this overnight).

I believe the figures. But I am simply taking out commuters, and adding in long distance passengers (those who would have flown, or driven) - this makes the average miles value higher.

The demand, I think when you switch domestic air travel over, is there.

-------------------------

Why not call the London to B'ham service at Warwick Parkway (image of all Cotswold Line passengers binning FGW ;D) !?

Yes, but for the economics of a HSL to work, you need train fulls of passengers to switch from air to rail. There are only a handful of flights from Bristol to Newcastle, compared with many tens between Scotland and London.

Evening

I see that Cornwall has been left out completely
in this list and we do have XC services, so to
carry on the limited stops I think it should go:
Dept Penzance then:

St. Erth
Redruth
Truro
Par
Bodmin
Liskeard

With occasional stops at Camborne and St. Austell.
As it was "Cross Country" or XC that was mentioned
in message bellow, I have added the obvious stops
for branch connections as XC basically shifts
tourists about especially in the summer, but I
suppose some of these could also be missed out on
one or two services or altenate them?

Your list from Plymouth and then:

Newcastle.  I think it should really be added to
this list, as connections for Berwick, Sunderland,
Durham and Carlisle.

Regards

Karl.

An interesting take on trains vs planes from the RMT (link below.)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7470907.stm

The beauty of TGV/ICE/AVE etc is that they can run on (electrified) ordinary railways as well, unlike pie-in-the-sky Maglev schemes. Demand in the towns in eastern France served by TGVs branching off the recently-opened LGV Est is booming, by all accounts.

Greengauge21 (see www.greengauge21.net (http://www.greengauge21.net)) a group which has been working on its own plan for an HSL from London out to Heathrow and on the Chiltern/M40 corridor to Birmingham Airport (with a branch into the city) and the North West is suggesting a branch to Bicester and Oxford, so you could belt along at 140mph (speed of the Kent commuter trains starting next year) to Oxford, then potter off to Worcester up the Cotswold Line if the wires went up. I should think London-Oxford in 30 minutes would be an achieveable timing.

But a stopping pattern like the one below on a high-speed line would give a French rail manager kittens. The whole point of Lignes a Grand Vitesse is the vitesse. The services branching off the LGV Est mostly run flat out to/from Paris from the junctions (and I think there is just one station between Paris and Lille on the LGV Nord). More stops equals time wasted braking and accelerating. Lots of stops is the nature of CrossCountry's routes, due to, as has been previously noted, most people making shortish journeys. How many people actually travel thoughout on the Dundee-Penzance type services?

Given Labours record of rail investment on FGW since they came to power I have to agree.Just more pre-election postering I think from a Government eager to save their political necks..Heard it all before.More studies,more CONsultants fees.The only thing we will get in the west is more of the same time the powerful road and air lobbys lean on whoever is in power.
  All governments promise the earth prior to elections only to be overtaken by events later on and the west railways over the years seem to have been an easy government target when things start going wrong.

This is an unjustified slur on Iain Coucher - it implies he is some sort of Government poodle, which is far from the truth. A joint Network Rail/ATOC letter backing work on a new electrification programme last November reportedly caused panic in the DfT - with senior civil servants being hauled out of meetings to find out what was going on, since Mr Coucher was not parroting the absurd proposition that diesel was the power source for years to come, which the DfT clung to until a matter of weeks ago, in the face of all the evidence.

If anything, it looks to me that he is trying to take the issue out of the hands of politicians, of whatever colour, and get some sort of long-term development programme in place - something that has been lacking in Britain since long before privatisation. In France, Germany and Spain, there have been national and cross-party consensuses since the early 1980s that their high-speed rail programmes are a good thing, which is why there has been sustained development of their networks for years.

This is an unjustified slur on Iain Coucher - it implies he is some sort of Government poodle, which is far from the truth.

If anything, it looks to me that he is trying to take the issue out of the hands of politicians, of whatever colour, and get some sort of long-term development programme in place - something that has been lacking in Britain since long before privatisation. In France, Germany and Spain, there have been national and cross-party consensuses since the early 1980s that their high-speed rail programmes are a good thing, which is why there has been sustained development of their networks for years.
[/quote]
My remarks were not aimed at anyone in the rail industry least of all Iain Coucher.Given the high level of public support from the tax payer for the railways governments will always have the last word on infrastructure investment and therein lies the problem in this country.Historically when the going gets tough Government spending on the railways has always suffered.Whether that cycle continues to repeat itself only time will tell.Hopefully it wont but I would not put money it.

Let's take a step back from arguments about where high speed lines should go and whether or not political posturing is taking place.

Think of a figure for what a network of high speed lines will cost. Let's call it X billion.

Now think of the journeys that you make. Think of where the price of petrol is now, and where it may be in twenty years time. Think of what other pressures there may be on life in the UK.

If you had X billion pounds to spend on transport - would Paddington-Temple Meads at 180mph be top of *your* priority list?

I would think so, a quote from UWE

^ the total cost of [road] congestion is usually estimated at ^20 billion a year.

What is that figure going to look like if nothing is done.

I would have thought rails contribution to reduce this cost to the British economy would be very welcomed by any party. The rail industry really needs to fight as dirty as road and air lobbys if anything Ian Coucher comes up with is to be implemented.

Considering the M4 is a major economic area, i'd say it was fairly high up the list!

Is a high speed network really needed?, or is a reliable high capacity network more appropriate?

I for one would be more than happy with a 125mph service, that didn't suffer the daily lottery of delays! The money should first be used to eliminate major network bottlenecks, and general track quality so that 125 trains can travel at that speed.

Whilst not wanting to prejudge any conclusions, it is unlikely that a high speed network will run a line into BTM. A high speed network will have minimal stops and would terminate at Cardiff. Therefore BPW would be more likely the Bristol station for a high speed network. 

This is a rail industry initiative, specifically a Network Rail initiative, but you said
It's nothing to do with DafT at this stage and Iain Coucher is looking long term anyway, not to whatever suits politicians in the run-up to an election.


The study will approach the issue from both directions. And if you actually look at what the genius of IK Brunel bequeathed us - a route that could be turned into a 125mph railway with precious little alteration in the 1970s - would fettling it up for 140mph (225kmh) be that much more difficult. Perhaps doing this, plus quadruple-tracking from Didcot to Swindon or on to Bristol Parkway, would be more cost-effective than taking a TGV-type line alongside the M4 over the Downs to Swindon?

What would it cost? High Speed 1 was ^5 billion for 68 miles (St Pancras was ^800m on top), but that includes a lot of tunnelling under London and the Thames, which wasn't cheap - though the project was on time and on budget

LGV Est, the latest French TGV route, cost about 5.5 billion Euros (^4.35bn) for 300km (186 miles) of new line and work on stations and some of the connecting routes, eg electrification for TGV operation. Service speed for TGVs and the German ICEs using the line is 320kmh (198.8mph).

I tend to agree, Will. I just can't see us ever having a purpose-built high speed line heading out west from London. I can see scope for a London to the Midlands, Manchester/Liverpool and maybe on to Glasgow/Edinburgh, but heading westwards the population centres it could serve are just not big enough in my opinion. Yes, you have big centres in Bristol, Cardiff, Exeter and Plymouth, but the topography of the land is not great (especially if anyone was thinking of extending it to Penzance), and suitable land would be at a premium.

There is scope for increasing the linespeed of the current track. It gets a bit twisty between Twyford and Goring, but otherwise it really is just the signalling that would stop higher speeds being possible in theory at least as far as Chippenham. Perhaps a 'double-green' LED aspect could be provided to give the appropriate braking distances where 4-aspect signalling is already in place?

To be honest, on the ECML and the GWML, it is a waste to build new lines.

Let's exploit the existing track to its full potential (obviously with capacity enhancements).

The problem with the UK, is that the cities are too close together for true high speed running (unless you do London, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow non stop).

About signalling, install a blue light which would mean high speed running permitted.

Back in the 1930s the then Great Western Railway planned to bypass the sea wall rail route in South Devon using Government interest free loans to build a new inland rail route from Exeter involving a 2 mile tunnel through the Halden hills emerging near Newton Abbot.At that time rail traffic levels were such that a 4 track railway was required between Exeter and Newton Abbot but there was not enough space on the existing sea wall route to lay 2 extra lines hence the plans for an inland route.Land for the scheme was purchased and fenced off prior to construction starting only for the outbreak of War to stop the scheme.Further a new fast line was also surveyed at that time onward towards Plymouth to be built to a minimum 1 mile radius curvature from Newton Abbot bypassing Totnes and rejoining the existing rail route near Marley Head(South Brent). Today the cost of such improvements would be enormous so the idea of a high speed line(186mph) reaching this far south west is fanciful to say the least.That being said much of the rail route west of Newton Abbot to Plymouth and Cornwall with its 55/65mph line speeds is little more than a branch line really and any money available needs to be spent raising line speeds closer to current main line standards. Perhaps some relatively minor realignments of the existing route could be funded to at least allow a 20th century railway in these parts even if we never get a 21st century railway west of Exeter. 

Woody, that's brilliant. Thanks so much for taking the trouble to type in all that info - it was news to me, and much appreciated.

You may also find this link on the history of the railway at Dawlish of interest.http://www.greatcliff.co.uk/pages/railway_history.php

how did st davids miss the list?

london waterloo-yeovil-exeter st davids would be a good high speed line yes it needs doubling and some of the sections would need a third line as a passing place to get past slower stopping trains

Do you mean as part of a high speed line from London-Cornwall, or just a link between London and Exeter? Exeter (pop. 120000) and Yeovil (42000) are nowhere near large enough centres to justify the costs that would be involved.

Now that Industry Insider has replied and I can make more sense of that post...

London - Exeter via Yeovil would be the best route for a direct high speed line between London and Cornwall, being the shorter route and therefore faster assuming they can get reasonably fast journey times out to Basingstoke which would be the primary issue, as rebuilding the SWML as far as Basingstoke would be far too cost prohibitive and cause absolute hell for Weymouth, Dorchester, Poole, Bournemouth, Southampton, Fareham and Winchester commuters.

I'd say a high speed line linking London, Heathrow, Reading, Bristol and Exeter would make more sence, as presumably, higher speeds could be reached and lots of commuting occurs from the south west towards Bristol, so there would be numerous flows along the route. This, unlike the Yeovil suggestion which would only really serve Basingstoke, salisbury, Yeovil and Exeter, making less money and being a less desirable route.

Stopping in London, Heathrow and then Reading is pointless as you'd reach top speed (186mph) just (give or take a minute) before having to start kicking in the brake - being really not very efficient at all.

I agree with Devon Metro the only way a high speed rail route will ever reach Exeter is via Bristol perhaps a branch off a London/South Wales high speed route which would also benefit crosscountry.There are simply not enough large population centres away from the M4/M5 corridor to even begin to justify such major investment between London and the South West.

sorry i ment for a high speed link to cornwall tauntons not far atall from exeter yes ok ive started to think now bristol needs a high speed link...best of both worlds highspeed st davids to london... but go via yeovil town and castle cary... therethore ending up at paddington which means just convert bristol to castle cary to h/s

ok drinks got the better of me,let me clarify.... st davids to castlecary via yeovil town and yeovil junction, high speed,(maybee cardiff) bristol-castle cary h/s... both meeting at cc and continuing to paddington

from paddington a train every 30 mins at peak one bristol-cardiff and one st davids and plymouth

Pardon  :D  :D  :D  :D

was i really that drunk last night? im scared ??? javascript:void(0);

How on earth did you manage to get some random javascript tosh into your message? o_O

To be honest a high speed line is not worth it on the London to South West route.

Brunel's lines surely be upgraded to 155 mph, 140 mph and 125 mph in most parts.

The cities are so close together, there is not point in 200 mph running.

Obviously, a fifth track from Paddington to Reading, and more capacity in the Reading area would be required, but apart from that, just electrify and introduce new tilting trains. I spur from Heathrow to the GWML facing West would also be useful, and get coaches off the M4.

Besides if you built a new line London to Bristol, I doubt there would be enough local traffic to justify the existing GWML, when you assume most of the cities would be served by the new line. Yes, new stations, new Oxford to Bristol service, but no more Swindon or Didcot passengers!

--------

No, unless you use the old Waterloo Eurostar platforms in some way, running a high speed link into Waterloo would be a nightmare for the busiest commuter lines! Also, where are the cities?

I think Brunel's line is the best designed line into central London - it should be exploited fully before any new lines bring hell to West Londoners.

You seem obsessed with tilting stock, but last time I checked, its fairly flat/straight from Bristol - London, hence the high speeds  ???

Tilt hinders train design and internal comfort.

i clicked the smily and nothing happened to i tried copying and pasting and java came up

Tilt can be used to increase speeds on already existing lines within the existing loading gauge - see WCML....

Tilting is not required on the near London stretches, but in Devon and Cornwall, not to mention many other stretches, tilting would raise speeds. It is the same with the ECML, tilting is not needed on the southern stretches, but further north it could slash journey times.

If XC got new tilting stock, they would benefit as well.

All new stock has to be "tilting compatible" ever since the IC225. Look at the 158s, 168s, 17Xs etc, so confort would be similar to any new build.

Tilting on the ECML would lower journey times by about 4 minutes at maximum, lol. Speeds are already over 100mph pretty much all the way and 91s are very powerful - so... negligible. GWML around Totnes wouldn't be able to take advantage of tilt, the curve radii are too short, same with further down the route.

Bull****. Look at 444s, 450s, 377s, 185s. 158s do not have a tilt profile (although it may look it). 170s do not have a tilt profile at all.

I would hasten to disagree. Have a look at the trains I mention! Have a look at the mark 4s. They all have sides that lean in.

The lines in Devon and Cornwall and Scotland are quite windy - solved by tilting

and hilly - solved by electrification.

Wow... sides that slope in. That really won't do anything to make them tilt enabled.

They require tilt equipment installing and there is no space on any of the stocks you listed. They tilt by about 3^ due to a purely aesthetic choice. 158s also are loosely based on Mk4s hence why they slope - no other reason though, no need to install tilt on 90mph stock is there? Likewise, Desiros are all rectangle and don't angle at all.

Getting awy from tilt and back to new high speed lines BTline is right it was Brunel that built the first high speed line as an Intercity Route from London to Bristol. Also he didn't follow the old  Bath Raod (A4) West of Reading leaving Newbury, Hungerford and Marlborough Devises off the through route. In the Thames Valley he missed Wallingford, Abingdon, Oxford, Wantage and Uffington. Swindon and Didcot are both creations of the railway.

It would easily be possible to reach Bristol in a little over the hour if it weren't for all the intermediate stops. What were the first HSTS in the 70s about 75 minutes or so with stops at Reading and Bath?

So how do you get high speed to the West. Increase capacity on the GWML East of Swindon 4 tracks to Didcot. Bring back 3rd platform at Chippenham and realing to allow fasts to overtake stoppers. Rebuild Reading with flyovers. Extra 5 trck East of Reading in parts.

Once West of Exeter geography is against you making a high speeed line expensive and probably not justified. So a possible solution is to do some realingment to increase overall line sped and probably the provision of passing places to allow more limited stop services to overtake stoppers. BR did quite a lot of realtively minor work to increase the overall line speed on the ECML most noticebly at Offord by the Great Ouse and Peterborough where the 20 mph restriction through the station was lifted. When I say minor I mean with modern civil engineering equipment the work was realtively small, considering the original railway was dug by hand.

The differences they made were tremendous especially the Peterborough one.

A thought for the new Corsham station advocates. Make it a loop staion with 4 running lines platforms on loops and fasts through the middle. That way it doesn't become a bottle neck. It might be more expensve to start but that's how the GWR built it's new lines like the Badminton route and the new Birmingham line from Old Oak to Banbury where there were 11 passing between Old Oak and Banbury.

It was even done on the Barry railway and the Vale of Glamorgan line admittedly to give the coal trains a run rather than expresses. 

Apparently this how the Japanese organise the Bullet trains. Intermediate stations are equipped for passing. I've heard someone tell that you glide to halt at the platform and 2 minutes later a fast comes by at full line speed your train then follows.

Why are we so scared of running railways fast with tight headways?

There is one big limitation to running at higher speeds the amount of energy to get from 100 mph to 150 mph and then maintain that speed is almost the same as getting from 0 to 100 mph therefore high speed is only of benefit on long runs.  The GWML to Bristol and even to Cardiff was well designed and is capable of certainly 140 to 150 MPH in most places between Reading and Chippenham there would need to be some civil work to ensure cuttings and embankments are stable and some track geometry changes but most of this was done in the early 70's in preparation for the HST's.

Just touching on the ECML the class 91 do run in excess of 125 MPH in a number of places Stoke Bank / Little Bytham one of them that is why there are flashing green aspects on the signals, most of the ECML suffers form power supply problems Cores Mill Feeder was installed about 2001 to bolster the supply in the Hitchin and Stevenage area but even on the newer stretches Grantham, Newark, Doncaster etc suffer especially if one of the grid supplies is out.  When the Eurostars ran on the ECML they were power limited to that of the 91.

The max speed of 91s in 2008 is 125mph. The 140mph trials stopped under BR!

They were only to prove that the 91s and Mk 4s were fit for purpose, ie that they were able to do what the contract specification required them to do.

Re the comment re Corsham Station, 4 running lines and loops is fantasyland given there appears no money to do a "basic" job (and even basic jobs seem to cost millions these days). 

Roger Ford called it the  "boiling frog" syndrome. There is absolutely no reason why a 4 track station at Corsham could not be built. Just employ good civil, peranent way and signal engineers  plus a quantity surveyor to plan the work and good project manager to do the work. Sack all the "bean counters" who only add costs for  no improvement in the project.

Realistically, the relatively short distances involved would not make a good sense for a GW LGV. There is also the old bugbear of electrification in the Severn Tunnel to consider, as any scheme would ultimately have to include wires to Cardiff, (at least), in the long term. Despite talk of dual powered traction, (engendered perhaps by rail planners' estimates for oil to cost $70 a barrel in 2010), I believe that current trends, will see an extension of current electrification schemes and a scrapping of large scale, hybrid motive power plans.

IMO 140-155 mph is the maximum we can hope to see along the GW main line, but even that modest increase would require some civil engineering and the provision of cab signalling.

As far as the Berks and Hants and services SW of Bristol are concerned, 125 mph as far as Exeter would probably be the maximum.  Beyond there, given the difficult terrain, Plymouth and Cornwall, despite their attractiveness as destinations, just do not make sufficient economic case for speeds of over 100 mph

I'm afraid that is inverse argument, and short sighted thinking.

By improving transport connections/travel times from Plymouth/Cornwall to the centre of England & the Capital will improve the economies of those areas, thereby creating more transport demand, thereby improving the economy further, ad infinitum.

In addition, both the South Hams areas and Cornwall are seeing significant population increases c/w rest of UK.

If we did not have transport visions and improvements, we'd still be using the canals, or turnpike roads!

Why? In the long term, we could see a HS 3 or 4 route in the GW area. We need the vision and the will, not the negativity about why things can't happen because of reasons x, y & z.

In my post above, I tried to separate fantasy from reality.  The major commercial centres on the GW main line are far too close together to allow much above 155 mph running.  OK, a new LGV line with it's first stop at Bristol may just sneak into consideration, but would operators really forego the revenue on offer at Reading and Swindon and would such a line be cost effective?  I would say doubtful, but would be interested to see a cogent financial argument.  The original railway builders were visionaries, but also speculators and although some of their routes are still carrying traffic today, many more bit the dust well before Queen Victoria.  Even in the 'Golden Age', financial considerations were to the fore.

With regard to services west of Exeter, heart would say wires to Plymouth and 125 mph running into Penzance. Head says 100-110 mph to Plymouth and doubling/resignalling to give a more robust and effective 90-100mph service in Cornwall.

I am aware of developments in the South West and of the economic woes in some areas of Cornwall, (which have far more complex root causes than just journey times to London/Bristol BTW). As the son of a Cornishman and graduate of the UoP, my heart lies very much in that area.  Although I would love to see an LGV running to Plymouth and even beyond, I just don't think it is economically feasible.  Plymouth cannot be counted as anywhere near one of the UK's most prosperous cities; as a look at the databases available at http://www.socd.communities.gov.uk/socd/Welcome.aspx  will show.  It could be argued that improved communications could improve Plymouth's potential for growth, but not nearly enough to justify the gargantuan investment required to improve significantly, (i.e. more than a cut of 30 minutes to London), on current journey times west of Exeter.

One thing is for certain line speeds of 55/65mph on the so called main line west of Newton Abbot are just not good enough anymore let alone as the 21st century unwinds.With yet another major road scheme in Cornwall(the Dobwalls bypass on the A38 between Plymouth and Bodmin) due to open in the autumn the last thing the railway infrastructure needs in these parts is stagnation.Ultimately that is a recipe for decline for the railway.It is sad reflection that since the 1930s abortive attempts by the then Great western to improve the rail infrastructure west of Exeter so little has happened.

I have to say that I agree pretty much totally with G.Uard's comments on this subject.

Agree with both G.Uard and Industry Insider. Some of the ideas suggested on this Forum do move away from a considered view of what is possible to cloud-cuckoo land.  G.Uard brings a dose of reality to what could be possible in a more enlightened environment.   

im sorry but i stand by what i said and want to add the following the via yeovil route for high speed would be faster i dont even mean stop at yeovil lets be fair no need!! but if it was doubled up the line is fast as it is its also very straight the only major problem i can see is between exeter and plymouth ... billions to fix the sea wall so that it will never sercome to the sea.... a new line further inland via newton abbot or rebuild the line between meldon quarry and beare alston ( something i belive would be a benifit eather way... always good to have a backup... cheapest option) im sorry for yet again posting drunk i know im an idiot but my hope is that every one can bring order to chaos and use my enthuiasm because the south western network is a goldmine

Friends of the Earth has said the government should invest in high-speed rail as an alternative to air travel (link below.)
http://www.englandsnorthwest.com/invest/news/archive/6626-government-should-invest-in-affordable-high-speed-rail.html

The Airport Operators Association recently reported that consumers have become less willing to pay for eco-friendly alternatives to flying as the economy tightens.

However, the three largest airports in Scotland reported decreased passenger numbers for July, which their owner described as another result of the high price of fuel and the credit crunch (link below.)
http://www.asap.co.uk/news/airports-see-domestic-passengers-shift-to-rail-5633452.html

Experts say that the results suggest that BAA and the airlines operating from the three airports are facing real competition from rail services for passengers traveling to points within Britain.

The downturn in domestic passenger numbers is expected to continue through the coming winter. BA has already cut one of its Glasgow to Heathrow flights, and the rail service from Scotland to England is expected to be faster by early 2009.